GRAHAM BROCK, INC.

Broadcast Technical Consultants

P.O. Box 24466

 St. Simons Island, GA 31522-7466

912-638-8028 • 912-638-7722 Fax

www.grahambrock.com

Happy Holidays

from the Staff of Graham Brock, Inc.

December Newsletter

Vol. VIII, No. 12 – December 2001

More Time For Settlements

The FCC has extended the time for settling mutually exclusive LPTV applications. The Commission previously set August 23, 2001, as the deadline for filing settlements and engineering solutions. However, several parties filed for extensions. The Commission issued a Public Notice stating settlements and solutions may be submitted through January 22, 2002. Those parties that filed settlements after the original August deadline will be considered as having filed within the new time period.

Allocations Branch Changes Policy

In a recently proposed change in community of license, the Commission’s Allocations Branch stated in its Order that it would take a closer look at counterproposals being filed by the Petitioner. The FCC stated that, in the case it was reviewing, the Petitioner originally filed for a new community of license and subsequently changed the community as a counterproposal in comments. The Order noted that the FCC Allocations Branch staff was having to duplicate its work in reviewing the first community and then having to consider another community in the counterproposal. In the future, the FCC may consider issuing a new Notice of Proposed Rule Making for the community counterproposal, allowing parties additional time to file comments and counterproposals. This will apparently be on a case-by-case basis. If the counterproposal clearly states why it was not possible to submit the new proposal as part of the initial request, consideration under the new policy may not be required. It may change the way rule makings are submitted to the Commission. There was no mention that this policy would apply to counterproposals submitted by outside parties not already involved in the Petition.

Station Fines Continue

A station was recently fined for failure to record the outage of tower lights and failing to notify the FAA of the outage. There has been a dramatic reduction in the documentation of outages at stations in medium and smaller markets. The station logs of facilities with contract engineers are not being reviewed regularly. Station licensees are therefore not being informed by the Chief Engineers whether EAS tests have been received and transmitted as required under the rules. Other items such as verifying daily tower light checks and items that were previously listed on the daily transmitter logs are being overlooked. It is important that engineers review the daily station logs regularly to insure the minimum requirements for EAS and tower lights are being looked after. Further, it is still a good idea for the operation’s staff to know how to contact and query the remote control system for the transmitter site. How many times has the transmitter gone off or the remote control system called and no one knew the proper procedures? Is the first response to pick up the phone and call the contract engineer? Is he or she available and responsive? This won’t help if the transmitter is off-the-air or malfunctioning and will not impress the FCC Inspector. Periodic reviews of procedures should be made and adequate training of all staff mandatory.

FM Allocation Proposal Increase

There has been a rise in the number of proposed Petitions for Rule Making seeking the allotments of individual channels to communities all over the country with a large portion submitted in Texas and Oklahoma. Many of the proposals are being filed by individuals for new FM channels. While a vast majority are in under-developed areas with low populations, one ponders whether these are preludes to something larger. There are still new channels that can be allotted to suburban communities that only recently have come available due to downgrades and relocations of existing stations.

Address Changes

If your address has changed during this past year, please let us know. You can E-mail address to kewanna@grahambrock.com or fax it to 912-638-8028. We would hate for you to miss something important because we had an old address.